Methane and hydrogen sulfide emissions from abandoned, active, and marginally producing oil and gas wells in Ontario, Canada.

Autor: El Hachem K; Department of Civil Engineering, 817 Sherbrooke Street West, Room 492, McGill University, Montreal H3A 0C3, Canada., Kang M; Department of Civil Engineering, 817 Sherbrooke Street West, Room 492, McGill University, Montreal H3A 0C3, Canada. Electronic address: mary.kang@mcgill.ca.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: The Science of the total environment [Sci Total Environ] 2022 Jun 01; Vol. 823, pp. 153491. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Feb 03.
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.153491
Abstrakt: Abandoned, active, and marginally producing (producing <1700 m 3 /day of natural gas or <1.6 m 3 /day of oil) oil and gas (O&G) wells emit methane (CH 4 ), a potent greenhouse gas, and hydrogen sulfide (H 2 S), a highly toxic gas, but measurements to quantify these emission rates are limited or lacking. Here, we conduct 85 measurements of CH 4 and H 2 S emission rates from 63 abandoned, active and marginally producing gas wells and a wetland area overlying a possible undocumented well in Ontario, the Canadian province with the longest history of O&G development. Our measurements show that abandoned wells emitting H 2 S are some of the highest CH 4 emitters (average = 16600 mg CH 4 /h/well), followed by abandoned unplugged and marginally producing wells. Abandoned plugged (average = 2100 mg CH 4 /h/well) and producing (average = 6800 mg CH 4 /h/well) wells are the lowest CH 4 emitters. Compared to inventory estimates, CH 4 emissions from marginally producing and active wells in Ontario are underestimated by a factor of 2.1, and emissions from abandoned plugged wells are underestimated by a factor of 920. H 2 S emissions, currently not included in the Canadian Air Pollutant Emissions Inventory, average at 160 mg H 2 S/h/well. Our findings highlight the importance of conducting measurements from all types of oil and gas wells including H 2 S emitting wells to understand H 2 S and CH 4 emissions and develop policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve air quality, and protect human and ecosystem health.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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